What is an “inarticulable feeling”? Like the one in Colleen Louise Barry’s poem “Pilsen.” Is it possible to relate this feeling to beauty? Which Barry seems interested in doing. Or maybe she doesn’t. Or maybe she’s going to propose a more smudgy relationship between beauty and this feeling. I guess partly because beauty is often descirbed as “inarticulable,” or at least out-of-reach to the poet, and in a circumstance like this, a poet will propose to take some time and find ways to articulate their feelings about beauty.
But Barry isn’t going to make clear whether her poem is one of those let-me-put-words-to-beauty kind of poems. The poem opens like it’s going to consider beauty. The first stanza of “Pilsen” claims there are people who “have beautiful things / to make any sentiment valid.” A fair statement. But it’s not clear the tone used to state it. If this is something “some people” do, what does thet poet think of those “some people”? It’s not clear. Just like it’s not clear whether the “inarticulable feeling” she has in line 3 is equivalent to a “beatiful thing” from line 1? Or should I read the “sentiment” from line 2 as the more sensible reference? The poem is very smudgy with its grammar and its phrasing. And I like that smudginess!
The other Barry poems in the selection published by A Dozen Nothing are like a poetics of smudginess, even! What is a line of a poem supposed to do? How do lines inflect upon one another from one line to the next? It’s fun to feel a little confused in Barry’s poems. And in “Pilsen” it’s even more fun, because the poem is leading to a very sweet conclusion using that familiar poetic device: the this-poem-is-not-saying-what-I-am-very-obviously-saying trope. Otherwise known as the My-mistress’-eyes trope. “Lovely person I admire, my particular feeling has nothing to do with you,” the poem says. And then winks. Because that “inarticulable feeling” Barry has is about the frame of a window, where she looks out and sees you.
And I guess I like Barry’s smudginess so much. And I like how it would seem to do a disservice to “Pilsen,” because this trope benefits from precision of statement to effect its reversal. It’s like Barry’s smudges are reckless considering where the poem concludes. And I like a poem that can be confident in its recklessness and still step in with such a precise conclusion.
Helpful Links
- Colleen Louise Barry’s home page
- A Dozen Nothing